-- Books

-- Books --

Bone Meal for Roses

Poppy was six years old when she was rescued from her abusive mother and taken to her grandparents’ farm to recover.

There, in the Breede Valley, where arid South African scrub exists alongside vineyards and fruit orchards, Poppy succumbs to the magic of their garden. Slowly, her memories fade and her wounds begin to heal.

But as Poppy grows up into a strange, fierce and beautiful young woman, her childhood memories start to surface. And then a love affair with a married carpenter across the valley explodes her world.

This is a lush, lyrical novel about a young girl’s struggle to come to terms with her past. It’s a coming-of-age tale with an edge, and a love story with a serving of strange…

Yesterday, Sally was living in an idyllic South African farmstead with her teenage daughter Gigi. Now Sally is dead, murdered, and Gigi is alone in the world.

But Sally cannot move on. She lingers unseen in her daughter’s shadow. When Gigi moves in with her aunt’s family, Sally comes too. When Gigi’s trauma stirs up long-buried secrets, Sally watches helplessly as the family begins to unravel.

Then Gigi’s young cousin develops an obsession with African magic, and events take a darker turn. Now Sally must find a way to stop her daughter from making a mistake that will destroy the lives of all who are left behind.

-- About

-- About --

"I grew up in Johannesburg in a house filled with books."

Miranda Sherry was seven when she began writing stories. A few decades, numerous strange jobs (including puppeteer, bartender and musician), and many manuscripts later, Black Dog Summer was published by Head of Zeus in 2014.

Miranda’s second novel, Bone Meal for Roses (also Head of Zeus), was released in September 2016.

Her first work, Days Like Glass, was shortlisted for the EU Literary Award in South Africa in 2005.

Miranda currently lives in Johannesburg with her sort-of-husband and two weird cats, and is working on her next book.

-- Blog

-- Blog --

Fiction-lovers are peculiar creatures. Whilst going about our daily lives, like anyone else, we’ll do pretty much anything to avoid death. We don’t want to think about it happening to anyone we know, and we don’t want to imagine it happening to us. However, the moment we get some downtime and pick up a novel or switch on our favourite TV series, we crave it, relish it, almost demand it. When we sink in to our preferred kind of fictional escape, we expect (and possibly, deep down, want) someone to die…Continue Reading

Let me set the scene: the bathroom features chewing-gum pink 1970s wall tiles and a big old bathtub. Inside this, sits a diminutive, fluffy-haired toddler wearing nothing but a smear of bubbles on her chin and a determined expression. Bath time is over, there’s nothing left to clean and the water is getting cold, but the little girl wants none of it. Being in the water with the ducky and the sloppy-slappy washcloth is the BEST THING EVER. Her exhausted parents have learned that the only way to extract this small person from the bath is to say: “once upon a time…” and then pause. In her eagerness to hear the rest of the story, the child rises out from the water like an avenging sea monster, and is out of the bath, into her towel and pulling on her pjs before they can blink…

When Head of Zeus asked me to write a guest blog to coincide with the UK launch of Black Dog Summer, I realised that in a book featuring violent events, which are, horrible as it is to admit, undeniably based on real ones, it’s the sinister spectre of a shadowy black dog skulking through the narrative that is based on something that actually happened directly to me…

“In the centre of the yard, the lucky bean tree was just starting to flower, and its bare branches were bristling with vibrant crimson spikes. Beyond the clearing, the lush long grass glowed tall and green and singing with life…”

Erythrina lysistemon

A flamboyant member of the pea family, this tree is also commonly known as the coral tree, and umsinzi in Zulu. Its flowers draw a myriad birds and insects with a penchant for nectar, its bark is favoured by elephants, and the leaves are munched by baboons, black rhinos and assorted antelope. The flowering of the lucky bean trees is an excellent indication that it’s time to plant crops, while boiled bark is an ingredient in many traditional medicines. When the pods ripen and split, the rows of bright red seeds that fall have long been regarded as lucky charms, and are often incorporated into adornments and jewelery.

“…spiky aloes, succulent elephant plants and pebbles flank the paths, and between each two adjoining driveways stands a pale-green-barked, white-thorned fever tree.”

Acacia xanthophloea

This elegant, pastel-hued member of the Acacia family gets its common name from a long-ago misunderstanding. Early European pioneers found themselves contracting terrible fevers when journeying through or living in areas where these green-yellow barked thorn trees grew. They figured it must be the trees making them sick, but of course it was because the trees liked to grow in the swampy spots where malaria-carrying mosquitoes thrived.

The acacia xanthophloea is quite unique, as photo-synthesis takes place in the bark because its leaves are so small.

“In the distance, the solitary baobab reached its sculptural branches towards the sky. I leaned my body against the chicken-wire of the gate and pressed myself against it, feeling each little wire diamond cut into my skin.”

Adansonia digitata

Often called ‘upside-down’ trees because it looks as if their roots are in the air, baobabs have a legacy of providing both symbolic significance and life-giving abundance to those who live close by. Their bark has been used for cloth, rope and fuel. They provide edible fruit and leaves and catchment basins and reservoirs for vital rainwater. Due to their ability to weather all sorts of abuse by rope-weaving humans and hungry elephants, and the way that they sprout to life even when cut down completely, they’ve come to symbolize endurance and longevity, as well as community, as tribal meetings are often held in the relief of their shade.

“I remember what it was like to drive on the streets beneath the jacarandas where the tar was carpeted in soft purple trumpet-shaped fallen flowers. If your car tyres crushed them from just the right angle, the trapped air in their bases would escape with a glorious popping sound. It was like driving through a giant bowl of Rice Krispies.”

Jacaranda mimosifolia

This magnificent South American tree was first brought to South Africa in 1880 to add a splash of ornamental colour to the dusty palette of the savannah. It has flourished along the streets and in the gardens of the older suburbs of Johannesburg, and has entirely colonised Tswane (often referred to as ‘jacaranda city’). It’s considered an invasive species, which means we’re not allowed to plant any new ones, but the rich blue-purple canopies still serve as a reminder that elements brought in and transplanted from far-off lands only add to what makes South Africa uniquely South African.